The Evil Child's Guide to Holy Week

This morning, my daughter reminded me that this Sunday is Palm Sunday.

What she meant to say was "Light Saber Sunday." Because every parent of children with blood that is red knows that that is what you get when you bring a bunch of kids to an extra-long Mass and give them each their very own blessed palm branch: furtive duels with blessed light sabers. Also blessed viking swords, blessed mustaches, blessed Harry Potter wands, blessed baby ticklers, blessed back scratchers, and blessed old-lady-in-front-of-us-neck-pokers, and of course blessed Wolverine knuckle blades. At first you think your kid is miraculously giving the responses in ecclesiastical Latin -- and then you realize he's using the cover of the sign of peace to put a cutting curse on his little brother. "Peace be with you!" - "Sectumsempra!" No.

It's far too late to change the culture of laxity and irreverent hooliganism in our family's pew. But maybe at least I can get a little company in my misery? To that end, here are some tips, from my evil children to yours, about how to ruin this most holy time of the year.

Know your stuff . . . .until it counts. You've probably spent the last several months doing some heavy-duty catechism, yes? Your poor mother realizes that the sacraments aren't going to prepare themselves, so you are actually getting regular religion lessons for once. You can reel off the corporal works of mercy without stopping for a breath. You can come up with the definition of imperfect contrition and transubstantiation and sanctifying grace without skipping a beat. And you even know the finer points of genuflection: one knee for passing the tabernacle, both knees and a signofthecross for when the little door is open.

But just wait. Fr. Happy is going to ask the First Communion kids some questions, isn't he? He's going to wait until everyone's quiet, and he's going to demonstrate just how well-prepared the angelic tykes really are. He'll go with something really basic, so as not to embarrass anyone. "Who can tell me," he will say, "Whoooooo can tell me . . .who made the world?" And your kid will shoot up her hand like she's volunteering for a tour of Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory. And when the priest chooses her, she will proudly say, "Odin! From the dead body of Ymir the Frost Giant!" High fives, pagan.

Learn all the wrong lessons. On Holy Thursday, our kids watch The Ten Commandments while I finish up the cooking for Passover, which we celebrate on Holy Saturday before making Easter eggs. Okay, fine, that is a tiny bit confusing even for kids who have grown up thinking chopped liver is a sacramental. But still, some things seem really clear. Like that scene in The Ten Commandments, where the Hebrew slaves are dragging those big old stone blocks around in the hot, hot Egyptian sun, and just sweating and suffering and just having the ever loving tar whipped out of them by Edward G. Robinson? That's kind of a striking scene, right? So my son is watching this, complete enrapt, eyes as big as saucers, clearly moved to the core at this spectacle of man's inhumanity to man.

And then he speaks. "Boy," he says, "Ohh, boy. I wish I had a whip."

Just go ahead and throw up. Why the heck not? You just got a haircut, you cleaned your ears for once, your nails are trimmed, and your mother is pinning all her hopes on getting one single, lousy family portrait. Just one, that's all she asks. She is just going to flat out beg you to pretend, for the tiniest fraction of a second, to be a decent human being -- one who is not crossing his eyes, nor licking his sister, nor screaming, nor clutching any unseemly part of his anatomy. Just really quick, guys! Here, under the lilac tree! Scoot in so all those old tires aren't in the shot! Sweetie, get your braids out of your mouth! Honey, you're holding the baby in front of your face, I can't see you! No no no, don't put her down in the mud. Yes, perfect, that perfect, now hold it --

Let it go.

And that's why Jesus said, "Let the little children come unto Me." Because He was afraid their parents were gonna deck them in this, the holiest time of the year.

Comments

All of us kids went to parochial schools and gave up chocolate and candy for Lent. Pre Vatican 11 for some reason, Lent was over on noon on a Holy Saturday, so we got our Easter baskets Saturday night. I think I puked on Easter Sunday for a few years because of gorging on chocolate.

We also went to Mass each day before school and I can remember puking sometimes when they swung incense for Benediction

Posted by Mack Hall, HSG on Friday, Apr 11, 2014 4:47 PM (EDT):

As a former CCD teacher still in therapy, ohhhhh, yeahhhhh.

Posted by mrscracker on Friday, Apr 11, 2014 11:58 AM (EDT):

Eileen ,
Our dog once almost ate an entire large chocolate bunny.We thought she was a goner, but thankfully the bunny was hollow & likely didn’t actually contain much real chocolate anyway. The cheaper chocolate’s usually full of fillers & the theobromine’s not so much an issue.
So, a thieving dog’s safer if Easter candy comes from the Dollar store as opposed to Whole Foods.

Posted by Richard A on Friday, Apr 11, 2014 11:31 AM (EDT):

You have how many children and you’re trying to get each one “for the tiniest fraction of a second, to be a decent human being”? The same tiniest fraction of a second that includes the camera guy being ready? You are a glutton for punishment!

Posted by RmW on Friday, Apr 11, 2014 10:14 AM (EDT):

Oh, the things those lovely, innocent young cherubic darlings say at Mass.
-
One Easter my youngest (of 11), turned to the lady next to him, a stranger to us, with great joy and excitement - “Easter is the best!” I shook my head in lovely agreement. “This morning I woke up and…..” would he mention the joyful music I played, the beautiful centerpiece for the breakfast table, his new clothes perhaps (secular but still okay)?
NO - —
“This morning I woke up and got to take a shower with my Daddy because it was just crazy at our house…” He tried to go on and describe in great deal what he saw before I was able to smother him under the pew. I love Easter.

Posted by mrscracker on Friday, Apr 11, 2014 8:59 AM (EDT):

federoff11,
We actually had the pleasure of meeting Charlton Heston before he passed away. He arrived at a tiny airport in our general area to campaign for a political candidate. We made the hour and a half trek there to see him.He was very kind & gracious.

Posted by Eileen on Friday, Apr 11, 2014 8:48 AM (EDT):

Usually the only one in our house who gets sick on Easter is the dog. He’ll gorge himself on leftover ham and then get a hold of some chocolate in somebody’s Easter basket. We don’t try to do the nice family picture though. We go to the 7 am Mass and then we come home and the hunt for eggs is immediately on. The minute we walk in the door, the ties are off and if I’m lucky the blazers are hanging on hooks in the mudroom despite my pleas to find a hanger (I suppose anything’s better than the floor). We used to try to do a nice family picture for the Christmas card, but our standards in recent years have, uh, relaxed somewhat.
.
The whole palm as a weapon thing drives.my husband.crazy. Well, we’ve got a houseful of boys, and I grew up playing with palms, so I never even thought twice about our crafty daughter fashioning the palms into really cool weapons for her brothers. Palms, it seems, were treated much more reverently in my husband’s childhood home and he’s sure the kids’ll go straight to hell for using palms in war games and their parents’ll be right behind them for allowing it. Our boys try their best to tone down the palm weaponry for the sake of their father’s blood pressure. And my daughter has learned to use her artistic palming abilities to make St. Brigid’s crosses. And my husband, for his part, tries really hard to get every spare palm placed behind a crucifix while the boys are too busy hunting for eggs to notice.

Posted by JBT on Friday, Apr 11, 2014 6:53 AM (EDT):

Soooooo, wait… you mean the Ymir thing isn’t Church teaching?

Posted by ChaCha on Thursday, Apr 10, 2014 11:49 PM (EDT):

Adamantium knuckle blades!

Hadn’t thought of that one yet so now all these kids will be using new and improved blessed-palm-weapons! Yeah, those light sabers were getting so 1970s through early 2000s and we ARE in the two thousand teens, you know! Anyone for Indian feather=palms on the back of their heads, ready for warfare? I know, it’s soooo NOT politically correct!

Posted by LizzieB on Thursday, Apr 10, 2014 11:39 PM (EDT):

This is the first time in 20 years that I will not be a victim in the palm wars! I managed to schedule my annual silent retreat for this weekend. O happy coincidence! I will pray for my poor husband…in blessed silence.

Posted by federoff11 on Thursday, Apr 10, 2014 9:46 PM (EDT):

Yea! We watch “The 10 Commandments” every Holy Thursday, too (we do a modified seder meal…. ask me one day about the year I tried to bake ground lamb in a lamb-shaped pan… kind of a standing but slouching over meatloaf made of really greasy meat. The kids loved it. not.)

We think its an all-ages movie… we’ve been watching it for years with the 11 kids, and they all look forward to it. My teen girls SO want to marry Mr. Heston!

Posted by Jenny on Thursday, Apr 10, 2014 9:30 PM (EDT):

so thaaaaat’s how you really feel about Frozen.

Posted by melanie on Thursday, Apr 10, 2014 7:15 PM (EDT):

Hey! No old tires to avoid in our pictures! Just the latest collection of kitchen trash the dog dragged out to shred into itty bitty pieces….

Posted by Susan B on Thursday, Apr 10, 2014 6:31 PM (EDT):

What Rob B has somehow edited out of his memory is the time our eldest (now 20) resisted attending mass. She had only recently joined our family (adopted), 12, and had been fighting us for days. Easter morning, she claimed to have a stomach ache. We put our feet down and she puked all over a monastery bathroom (hey, she did get to the bathroom and even tried to clean it up). We thought she was lying to get out of mass; boy were we proven wrong! Memories, sweet memories.

Posted by Betty on Thursday, Apr 10, 2014 5:51 PM (EDT):

One of our most memorable family pictures occurred when we gathered the entire family (mom, dad and 5 kids) for a picture. We had company over, so asked them to take the picture for us, and thought it would be nice to include our dog in the picture. It took several minutes to line everyone up properly and call the dog over, and just as the first “Smile!” was heard, the dog started loud gagging and vomiting on my living room carpet. Ah, those magic family moments!

Posted by Rob B. on Thursday, Apr 10, 2014 4:19 PM (EDT):

My kids would *never* do this! Never, never, never! Did you hear me say “Never!” :)
.
Seriously, I think my eldest son (age 5) would be the most likely to turn a palm into a sword. He has a thing for knights, though. Does that make it at least a bit less blasphemous? ;)
.
I *love* The Ten Commandments (sadly, my lady wife doesn’t share my enthusiasm for Cecil B. DeMille’s masterpiece). That being said, I think I’ll wait until my older kids have reached the age of reason before I show it to them. They love the animated *Prince of Egypt* movie, though.

Posted by Ted Seeber on Thursday, Apr 10, 2014 4:04 PM (EDT):

For Palm Sunday, learn as a family to tie crosses. You’ll all be more popular than the balloon man at a kids party.

Posted by mrscracker on Thursday, Apr 10, 2014 2:46 PM (EDT):

osted by Ellen Johnson on Thursday, Apr 10, 2014 1:46 PM (EDT):

It wasn’t Easter in my family without a puke incident”
***************************************************************
Goodness, yes. I’d forgotten about those.Especially after they’d eaten an entire chocolate bunny and then spent an hour in an old van on winding country roads to get to Mass.Yuck.

Posted by Ellen Johnson on Thursday, Apr 10, 2014 1:46 PM (EDT):

It wasn’t Easter in my family without a puke incident. If we were lucky, it would be due to the excess sugar and excitement, but we also got some epic stomach bugs a few years there. Blech.

Posted by mrscracker on Thursday, Apr 10, 2014 12:36 PM (EDT):

We used to watch a video of The Ten Commandments every year.What my girls picked up were the dance movements of Jethro’s daughters, especially the part where they swing their heads & their long hair touches the ground.Mine were “long-haired”, too & would act this out over & over & over….

Posted by mrscracker on Thursday, Apr 10, 2014 12:28 PM (EDT):

Posted by richard on Thursday, Apr 10, 2014 12:09 PM (EDT):

I once witnessed someone braiding their palms during the sermon.”
********************************************************************
That might have been my kids. A parishoner from Jamaica taught them how to make woven palm crosses.It kept them busy & prevented them from using the palms as weapons during Mass.
:)

Posted by Chris on Thursday, Apr 10, 2014 12:19 PM (EDT):

Light sabers lead to the inevitable “pieces be with you”

Posted by richard on Thursday, Apr 10, 2014 12:09 PM (EDT):

I once witnessed someone braiding their palms during the sermon.

Posted by Maria on Thursday, Apr 10, 2014 11:59 AM (EDT):

Too funny! I thought we were the only ones who used palm branches as light sabers.

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